Hidden Wounds
by LittleFairy78
Summary: Tag to "Shadow". With the ordeal the boys have just been through, physical wounds might be the least of their problems. Or so Sam thinks. If only he knew the full truth.
1. Chapter 1

This story has been posted before on **DeanDamage** (dot) **com**, the newest archive for all things Dean-whump. It's where I post my Dean-whump stories before I put them up here on fanfictionnet. It's a great archive already, and new authors and readers are always welcome. Check it out! It's also the place where I'll soon start posting my sequel to "Whatever you do, don't let go", so if you want to read that before it goes up here, keep an eye out on the site.

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. All publicly known characters and locations belong to their rightful owner. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made with this story as it was written for enjoyment only.

Rated for some language and blood.

Enjoy!

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**Chapter 1**

The drive passed in silence. It wasn't unusual, neither Sam nor Dean really was the chatty type when there was nothing important to say. But this time the radio was also silent and no music was blasting from the speakers. But the real problem was not driving through the night in total silence. Sam was used to that by now. No, the real problem was that he was itching to talk. They needed to talk about what had just happened to them. Sam needed to talk about what had happened.

After weeks and months of searching for their father all across the country they had finally found him. Or rather, John Winchester had found them. And contrary to what Sam had feared, meeting his father again after everything that had happened between them had been good. He'd have never thought it, but seeing their father again had felt really good. Sam couldn't remember how often he had imagined what their reunion might look like. It had been countless times, and just as many scenarios had been the outcome of those imaginations. But he had never thought that it would be this easy.

When he had seen his father again in the motel room, it had felt as if everything had simply fallen into place. It wasn't as if all the harsh words and hard feelings had all been forgotten in that one single moment. That was all still there, and Sam had no doubt that sooner or later it was all going to break out again. He knew his relationship to his father too well for that. But upon seeing his father again, the relief that John was all right, that he was alive and healthy had simply been too great. Everything else lost importance in the face of that.

They had found their father again.

And then they had let him go.

Sam hadn't been able to believe his ears when Dean had suggested that they split up again, not after all those months spent searching. He was not willing to let his father go again. There were too many things he still needed to ask, things only their father could provide answers to. But just like always, Dean and their father had agreed. It had been like it had always been, back to Sam being the kid who wasn't even asked for his opinion while the two of them came to a decision.

Sammy got to sit at the children's table while the adults made decisions.

Dean and John had agreed that it was better if they split up again, and before Sam had known what was happening John had driven off in his truck, back to life as it had been over the past year – Sam and Dean on the road, and their father nothing but a voice in a voicemail account, asking for a message of which they never knew whether it reached him or not.

Sam wasn't willing to go for that. He had left on this quest with Dean not only to find their father. Of course that had been their main goal, but Sam had always wanted to find John so that they would finally get some answers. Answers to what John had been doing, why he had left. Answers about the thing that had killed their Mom, that had killed Jess. He was entitled those answers, but once more he had been ignored. As far as his father was concerned, his opinion didn't count for anything, and whenever John was around Dean seemed to regress to that opinion as well.

It pissed Sam off like nothing else.

But once more, he hadn't found the words, hadn't even been allowed a say until everything was already decided.

So maybe it was a good thing that they were driving in silence, because if they had been talking about what had just happened, Sam was fairly sure he and Dean would end up fighting about it. Sooner or later they would end up fighting about it anyway, but it was a battle Sam didn't particularly want to fight right now.

The left side of his face was throbbing where the shadow demon's claws had ripped his skin. They were both banged up really bad, just like their father had said. All the more reason to stick together, Sam thought. But he had been overruled in the silent vote which he hadn't even been invited to participate in.

Sam shook his head and turned around towards the back seat. The more he kept thinking about it, the angrier he got. He needed to distract himself, otherwise he was going to start picking a fight with his brother after all, just to get it out of his system.

One of their duffle bags was standing on the back seat, and Sam bent backwards to reach for it. Dean didn't react, didn't even cast his eyes to the side as Sam leaned over the bench seat to reach for it. Sam didn't care. He struggled to pull open the zipper and rummaged around until his fingers closed around the small metallic flask he had been looking for. The bottle of holy water and a clean cloth in his hands, Sam turned around and settled back into the passenger seat.

When he unscrewed the flask of holy water, Dean cast a short glance into his direction, but he didn't say anything and Sam decided to ignore him. He was still seething about the decision to split up, and with his defences down as they were right now, he wasn't above letting Dean know. So what if it was childish? Dean had treated him like one earlier, now he was going to pay him back in kind.

So instead of saying anything, Sam poured some holy water onto the cloth, part of an old t-shirt that had been recycled to be an all-purpose cloth. Using the surface of the flask for a mirror, he started wiping at the blood on his face. The cuts in his face weren't that deep, but the holy water sizzled in the wounds, setting the whole left side of Sam's face on fire as he started cleaning out the gashes.

It was easier to let his brother deal with that kind of treatment normally, but they would have to stop soon for the night, and checking into a motel all torn up and bloody aroused more suspicion than Sam was willing to deal with tonight. Besides, one thing Sam had learned during all these years on the road was that you didn't let wounds go untreated for any longer than necessary. Since Dean was busy driving and no conversation was forthcoming, it beat sitting there and staring at the scenery.

One of the gashes was deeper than the others, and as the holy water sizzled and burned into his skin Sam couldn't hold back a hiss of pain from escaping.

Maybe that was the moment when he should have started noticing something was amiss.

Maybe it should have worried him that Dean didn't take his eyes off the road. Dean not reacting to Sam in pain was a warning sign, but at that moment Sam was too focussed on the sensation of the skin burning off his face as the holy water cleansed the wound. Jaw clenched, Sam breathed in short bursts until the pain became bearable again and until his hands had stopped shaking enough to wipe off the rest of the blood.

Eyeing his reflection in the smooth surface of the holy water flask, Sam came to the conclusion that it could have been worse. One deeper cut and three shallow ones. Nothing that would require stitches, and the wounds had stopped bleeding all on their own. Two or maybe three butterfly bandages on the deeper cut and he'd be as good as new in about a week, maybe two.

Sam screwed the cap back on the flask of holy water and with a sigh leaned back in the bench seat. The headlights of the Impala illuminated the dark interstate in front of them, but the scenery they passed was shrouded in darkness. Sam felt his eyes grow heavy as he looked out into the black expanse beyond his window. He didn't want to fall asleep. In fact he had planned on staying awake until they reached a place to stop for the night. But his eyes and mind were not cooperating with his desire to stay awake and he slowly blanked out.

The next thing Sam knew was that his head jerked up to the sound of screeching tires, and his body was pressed against the passenger door as the car swerved to the left, grassy ground bumping under the tires before they finally found purchase on the asphalt again and Dean brought the car under control once more.

Heart beating fast in his chest, Sam straightened up in his seat and cast a glance at his brother. Dean was pale, and his eyes seemed heavy lidded as he blinked the world in front of him back into focus.

"Whoa."

Dean's answer was a grunt that could mean practically anything, but he kept his dead grip on the steering wheel and didn't look to the side to meet his brother's eyes.

Sam knew what had happened. It hadn't taken his brain long to catch up on the fact that Dean had nearly missed a bend in the road – because of fatigue, inattentiveness, Sam didn't know. But that was exactly the thing – Dean didn't do that kind of thing. Dean loved this stupid car so much that he'd rather spend money on a motel room if he was overtired than risk running the Impala off the road.

Also, it was as clear a sign as any as to what their next course of action was going to be.

"The next town we come to, we'll stop and get a room."

Dean only answered with another grunt, but Sam felt all former signs of fatigue slip away and watch the road in front of them attentively, making sure that Dean wasn't going to miss another turn. It would be just their luck to escape Meg and the shadow demons just to find their untimely end in a ditch somewhere in the middle of nowhere just because they hadn't stopped for rest.

But whatever had caused Dean to nearly drive off the road with Sam asleep, it seemed to have passed. Dean still looked pale and tired, but his gaze was fixed on the road ahead and he was entirely focussed on driving. In silence.

A few minutes later Sam saw the first sign, and about half an hour after their near-crash, Dean pulled the car into the parking lot of a motel. He killed the engine but made no move to get out of the car. No small wonder, considering that Dean's face still looked mauled and bloody, so it was a reasonable decision to let Sam handle the small act of getting them a room.

Every bone and muscle in Sam's body protested against the movement as he climbed out of the car. Sam longed for a hot shower to loosen his muscles after being tossed around and smashed into walls all day long.

The motel's office was small and cramped, coffee vending machine wedged into the narrow space between the door and the desk and an ugly potted plant taking up space that wasn't there. Nobody was in the office, but there was the muffled sound of a TV coming from the back room. A bell rang as Sam opened the door, and as he approached the front desk, a young guy in his early twenties shuffled out of the room, tiredly scratching his messy hair.

"Need a room?" The kid asked in a voice that was only half-awake.

"Yeah. Two queens, please."

The kid shook his shaggy hair as he consulted the ledger in front of him. "Sorry, no can do. I only have three singles and a king left." He looked up, glassy eyes meeting Sam's with an expression that clearly said to hurry up with his decision so that he could go back to sleep. His eyes strayed over the cuts on Sam's face for a second, but he gave a half-shrug as if he couldn't really bring himself to care about what had happened to his new guest. Not at 2:30 am in the morning.

And really, there wasn't much of a decision to make. One of their father's firm and unshakeable rules of hunting was not to expose themselves as more of a target than necessary. Especially with just a few hours and only slightly more miles separating them from the last thing that had attacked them, splitting up in two rooms was out of the question. Sleep left you vulnerable enough, and with both him and Dean hurt there was no way Sam was going to take two single rooms.

"I'll take the king."

He handed the kid one of the credit cards Dean had scored over the past months and filled out the registration under the name of Andy Dawson, his mind straying off as his hand automatically went through the necessary motions.

Dean would moan and grumble about the king-sized bed, but in the end he'd agree with Sam's choice being the strategically better one. Considering their current state, maybe for once he'd leave out the complaining altogether.

Besides, it wasn't as if they had never been forced to share before. Both he and Dean had outgrown rollaways a long time ago, and three-bed lodgings had not always been in the budget when they had still been on the road together.

As beat as they were, it wouldn't matter much anyway where they fell asleep.

Besides, there were ground rules for that kind of situation, firm rules that had been established over the years:

Stay on your side of he bed, no flapping around your arms and legs when you turned, no blanket hugging. Break those rules and you get kicked out of bed. It was as easy as that. And it worked.

Absent-mindedly Sam signed the credit cart slip, grabbed the key and left the office again. Dean was still sitting right where he had left him, slumped in the front seat of the Impala. His eyes were closed, testament to how exhausted he really was, but he turned his head the moment Sam opened the passenger door.

"Number 19."

Dean nodded and started the car, setting it back and then driving down the length of the building to pull up into the parking slot in front of room 19. Sam got up and got out, grabbing the duffle bag from the back seat as he rounded the car. Dean slowly followed his lead, movements tired and sluggish as he pulled himself out of the driver's seat and closed the car door behind himself. Sam opened the trunk, grabbed another duffel with some of their clothing and the much needed medical supplies, then he went over and unlocked the door to their room.

He dropped the bags next to the bed and watched as Dean entered the room and cast his eyes on the single bed. But contrary to the outbreak Sam had expected, Dean only gave a tired shrug and turned over towards the side of the bed that faced the door.

"Wanna hit the shower?"

Dean tiredly shook his head. "Nah, go ahead. I'll wait."

Sam frowned, but Dean had his back turned towards him and seemed to be looking for something in their weapon's bag, so he didn't question his brother's behaviour. His body craved a hot shower, and once that was done he'd have his head together enough to help Dean clean out his own wounds before he hit the showers. It was as good a plan as any.

It was a good feeling to get rid of his torn and dirty clothes and step under the hot spray of the shower. Sam wanted nothing more than to stand there and let the water massage the soreness out of his muscles until the hot water ran out, but Dean probably wanted to take a shower after him and wouldn't take too kindly to cold water. With their sleeping arrangement in mind, Sam didn't particularly want to incur his wrath tonight of all night. Not by something as stupid as how much hot water was left. So Sam tore himself out of the steaming bliss after what seemed like far too short a time, got out and towelled himself dry.

Condensation had fogged up the bathroom mirror, so Sam wiped it off as much as he could with the heel of his hand and took a look at his injuries. He would have some nice bruises all over his torso tomorrow, but aside from the cuts on his face there wasn't anything that needed treatment.

The hot water and change of clothes had not only washed away all the dirt and blood, but also increased the bone-deep weariness that came from too little sleep and too much stress. All Sam wanted was to lie down and sleep for a day or two. He kicked his dirty clothes into the corner by the sink and opened the bathroom door. He could worry tomorrow about which pieces of clothing were still salvageable and which not.

"Shower's free. We should clean out those cuts before you…Dean?"

Sam looked around in confusion. At first glance, the room was empty. But Sam hadn't heard the front door open, and in all honesty Dean had barely looked capable of making it to the bathroom.

"Dean?"

Frowning, Sam stepped out of the bathroom and walked around the bed. His body turned cold from one moment to the next as his eyes fell on his brother.

"Dean!"

Dean was lying on the rug in front of the bed, face down, the duffle bag buried under his torso. The flask with holy water was lying in his limp hand, as if he had been reaching for it when his strength had run out. Sam was frozen in place for a moment, then he ran to his brother's side and fell to his knees beside him.

"Dean! Talk to me man, what's going on? Dean?"

Sam slapped Dean's cheek without getting a response. Dean's skin was hot and clammy to the touch, and his eyes were moving restlessly beneath his closed lids. Sam's heart was beating adrenaline through his body at a frantic pace as he tried to figure out what was going on. Dean was running a fever, but he had been fine only a few hours before. And he hadn't said anything during the drive, hadn't shown anything but signs of fatigue. Or what Sam had thought to be signs of fatigue.

Damn it, why wasn't anything ever easy with his brother?

"Dean! Dean come on, wake up."  
There was no reaction, and Sam forced himself to push down the rising panic and start dealing with this.

Panic wouldn't help Dean. Sam could only help his brother if he remained calm.

Forcing down the bubble of panic that was threatening to rise inside of him, Sam took a closer look at his brother.

Dean was unconscious, he was running a fever, his respiration was shallow and he wasn't exactly looking peachy.

Okay.

First step, check for injuries.

There were the claw marks of the shadow demon, similar to Sam's own but located on Dean's forehead. They had stopped bleeding, as had the small cut on Dean's right eyebrow that had bled profusely before. He was going to have one hell of a shiner tomorrow, but you didn't run a fever and fall unconscious from a black eye.

Concussion?

Sam pried first one eye-lid, then the other apart with his fingers. Dean's eyes were glazed, but the pupils were the same size and reacted to the light. So probably not concussed. At least not bad enough to explain Dean's unconsciousness.

Not good.

So not good.

"Come on Dean, help me out a little here."

Carefully, Sam ran his hands along the sides and the back of Dean's head in search for any injuries he might have missed before. But there was no blood, no suspicious lumps, nothing.

"Okay. I'd say we get you out of this jacket and off the floor."

Sam reached for the hem of Dean's leather jacket and pulled it open.

And froze.

The left side of Dean's shirt underneath the jacket was saturated with blood, and only the thick leather had kept it from seeping through the jacket. And suddenly Sam saw his brother's behaviour over the past hours in a different light. What he had put off as signs of fatigue, or remnants of the thorough tossing around they had both received from the shadow demon suddenly all shone in a different light.

Dean's hunched posture when they had split ways with their father. The way he had kept his left arm pressed against his side. The pained grimace and small groan as he had gotten into the car. The way he had silently sat in the car and waited for Sam to get a room. Sam had thought maybe Dean had bruised some ribs, he'd have never guessed that his brother was bleeding so badly.

And of course Dean hadn't breathed a word.

Not Dean Winchester, captain of the League of Stubborn Idiots.

No, because it had been so much easier to just grind his teeth and drive than maybe ask Sam to help him wrap the wound or, god beware, ask Sam to drive. No, the idiot had ignored the pain and probably would have continued to drive if it hadn't been for their near-crash and Sam's insistence that they stop and look for a motel.

"Damn it Dean, why do you have to be so stubborn?"  
There was no answer. Of course there was no answer, and answers could wait. For now Sam had to take care of Dean's wounds.

It was a struggle to get Dean out of the leather jacket. His brother was unresponsive and his limbs didn't cooperate the way Sam wanted them to, but with a bit of cursing and a whole lot of physical effort Sam finally managed to get the stiff leather garment off. The shirt would be next, but for now Sam needed to get Dean off the floor. And that was probably going to hurt. Sam quickly made sure that there were no other wounds he had missed, then he put one arm under his brother's knees and the other around Dean's back, mindful of the wound on his side.

Dean was heavy.

There had been a few times that Sam had lugged his only half-conscious brother around, either due to an injury or to alcohol, but he couldn't think of a time when he had lifted an entirely unconscious Dean. The phrase _dead weight_ suddenly got a whole different meaning. Muscles straining with the effort, Sam ignored his brother's grunt of pain and manoeuvred him onto the bed.

"Sorry bro. But we need to get this taken care of. I hope you're not too attached to that shirt because I think it has to go."

Sam didn't know why he was talking to Dean when it was obvious that his brother was unconscious and unaware, but it made him feel better. And maybe there was a chance that Dean could hear him, after all.

The shirt was torn from the demon's claws and it was beyond saving. So instead of wrestling Dean out of yet another piece of clothing, Sam pulled a pair of scissors out of the duffle bag and cut the shirt off. Congealed blood made the shirt stick to the wound, and Sam grimaced as he pulled it off. But even though it had to hurt when the fabric tore at his flesh, Dean didn't so much as twitch.

It were definitely claw marks on Dean's side, similar to the ones in Dean's face. Only these were a lot deeper and had bled worse. At one point during the attack, the shadow demon must have caught Dean with a hard swing, but Sam hadn't noticed with everything else that had been going on. The deepest scratch was also the longest, and it ran all the way down Dean's side to his hip. There was too much blood smeared around the wound to make anything out clearly, but the wound had bled so badly that the waistband of his jeans was also soaked through.

"You never do anything halfway, do you?" Sam said with a sigh as he undid the button of Dean's jeans and started to shrug them off. It was the first time that Sam was glad his brother was unconscious since he had come out of the bathroom. Had he been awake, him taking off Dean's pants would have been a whole lot more of a struggle. Dean would have probably tried to manage that on his own even if both his hands were broken.

And it was difficult enough as it was to get the garment off and take a closer look at the wound on Dean's side. It were four gashes all in all, three of them more shallow, but the longest one was pretty deep and stretched from roughly an inch to the left of Dean's navel all the way down to the side of his hip. Sam winced as he pulled the waistband of Dean's boxer shorts down a bit to inspect the wound.

It had to hurt like hell, so maybe there was another upside to Dean being unconscious.

Sam sat down on the mattress beside Dean's knees and ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. Dean's fever seemed to be getting worse, and sweat was mixing with the blood on his face and side.

Dean wasn't doing well, and his condition, whatever it was, wasn't getting better on its own, so it was about time that Sam did something against it. There'd be time for sitting around and moping later. He gave Dean's knee a pat.

"I'll be back in a moment."

Sam got up from the bed and hurried back into the bathroom. He grabbed all unused towels he could find and hurried back into the other room. The medical kit was in the duffel bag that Dean had decided to take a nap on, and Sam quickly put the towels down on the bed beside Dean.

The flask with holy water was still nearly full. Fortunately, because Sam knew that his brother wouldn't have said anything about his own wounds even if he had known that Sam was about to use up the entire rest that was in the flask.

"Okay, this is going to hurt. But considering how much it stung earlier when I did it, I'd say it's about time we get this done."

Instead of wiping the holy water on the wounds like he had done with his own face earlier, Sam poured the holy water directly on the gashes, starting with the scratches on Dean's forehead. Dean's flesh sizzled and smoked as the holy water came into contact with the demon-tainted wound, but Dean didn't make a sound. He twitched slightly and his face turned into a grimace, but no sound escaped his lips.

"Sorry," Sam mumbled as he wiped at the excess holy water with one of the clean towels. "I'm sorry."

Sam had never been a fan of one-sided conversations, and right now his constant stream of apologies was nothing but a monologue. But the alternative was silence, and Sam thought that silence was even worse than rambling on for only himself to hear.

Judged by how badly his own wound had stung when it had come into contact with the holy water, Sam had a pretty good idea what was in store for Dean now. But it had to be done, and without deliberating any further, Sam poured more of the holy water onto the deep wounds in Dean's side.

The reaction was immediate.

Dean gave a sharp yell of pain and tried to curl in on himself, hands flaying wildly to fight Sam off, unaware that the pain was unavoidable to help him heal. Sam hated himself for doing it, but there was no compromise when it was about his brother's health. He reached for Dean's hands and held them down, using his own body weight to keep Dean from curling in on himself.

All the while he kept op his muttered stream of apologies, more for his own benefit than his brother's. Dean was breathing in harsh bursts, eyes pinched shut and his face a grimace of pain. Sam just knew that had he been awake Dean would have done his best to put his game face on, grit his teeth and not let the pain show, but in his unconscious state all his defences were down. Sam didn't hold it against him, and he'd certainly not ever would in the future. He wouldn't even mention this display of weakness, or the tear that Sam saw escape from his brother's eye and roll down his cheek.

Because the way Dean was writhing, struggling to escape Sam's hold despite all the weight that Sam put on him to hold him down, it had to hurt like hell. Sam would have put more effort into restraining Dean, but he was afraid that if he held on more tightly, he was going to do more damage than good.

When the worst of the pain had abated, Sam slowly loosened his hold on his brother's wrists and leaned back. That should have been the worst of it, but unfortunately it hadn't been all. With Dean's reaction to the holy water as bad as it had been, Sam had no choice but to pour another measure of the liquid onto the gash before he had time to hesitate or think about it twice.

This time the reaction was much less violent, but still Dean flinched as steam rose from the wound. But Sam didn't have to hold Dean down again, and once the worst of the reaction was over Dean sagged in on himself, unmoving, unconsciousness even deeper than it had been before.

Butterfly bandages would suffice for most of the gashes, but the large one that ran down Dean's side would need stitches. Sam finished cleaning off the blood with one of the towels, then he pulled out the suture kit from the medical bag and disinfected his hands.

He hated this. He hated that they had to deal with that kind of thing, that it wasn't the first logical step of action in face of such a wound was to drive to the hospital. The way their father had raised them, both he and Dean knew how to deal with a variety of wounds. He knew he could stitch up a gash like that. But that didn't change the fact that he hated doing it. It always made him feel as if he was giving makeshift-care, that somebody with a medical degree might give better help than he could.

But he couldn't change the situation anymore, so he had to do what had to be done. Winchesters did what needed to be done, and they didn't whine about it. And at least this one time, Dean couldn't protest or flinch away.

Sam placed the stitches, taking great care to make them as small and even as possible to minimize the scarring. He taped the other gashes with butterfly bandages, smeared some antiseptic ointment on the wounds and wrapped Dean's side with gauze and a bandage.

But despite all of Sam's ministrations, Dean's skin was still flushed with fever. And it didn't seem to be getting any better, and that was what worried Sam the most.

He opened the medical kit again and pulled out the thermometer that was stored there. It was one of the few things that he had talked Dean into buying after he had started on the road with his brother. The old thermometer had been a relic of their youth, an old thing that Sam remembered being in there since he had been a small child. It had been time for an update, and ear thermometers were much faster. No reason not to arrive in the 21st century even if you were living on the road. Especially where medical issues were concerned.

So Sam had talked Dean into buying one. Or rather, he had simply thrown out the old one and bought one himself. The following lecture about how credit card fraud was hard work and hustling pool no fun at all had been cut short by a little reminder of the one time that a sixteen year old Sam had nearly choked on that old thermometer because he had lost consciousness with the thing in his mouth.

It had been the end of the discussion, and the ear thermometer had never been mentioned again.

Sam didn't have to wait long for the result. The quite worrisome result of Dean running a fever of 103°. Sam sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Dean had been healthy earlier, so this was an infection, or another reaction of his body to the shadow demon's claws. Sam had never seen an infection cause such a fever, not in such a short time. But he also new next to nothing about shadow demons and what damage they could cause. His own wounds felt fine, and he didn't feel flushed or feverish. But then again his own wounds hadn't been as bad as Dean's, and he had treated them with holy water a lot earlier than Dean had.

Sam picked up two of the remaining towels and went back into the bathroom where he soaked them in cold water in the sink. He might not know what caused Dean's fever, but he knew how to bring a fever down before it got dangerous.

Or he hoped he did, because the alternative didn't bear thinking.

Dean was lying much to still on the bed, the only movement the restless shift of his eyes beneath his lids. Sam wrapped a wet towel around each other his brother's calves, covered them with a dry towel and pulled the blanket up over Dean's chest. None of that, not even the contact of cold and wet towels with fever-flushed skin, provoked any kind of reaction.

Sam leaned back and sighed. So much for bone-deep fatigue and his desire to sleep. Only half an hour ago he could have dropped at a moment's notice, but now adrenaline and worry were running through his system, letting him forget all about his own tiredness. There was no way he could sleep now, not until he was sure that his brother's fever was going down instead of up.

Sam got up from the bed and started pacing up and down their motel room. He didn't like this. He absolutely didn't like this. If this were an illness, or a normal infection, he'd know the drill. But this? This was progressing far too fast for an infection, it wasn't a fever, and Sam had absolutely no idea about daevas and the kind of damage they inflicted. Up until this morning, he hadn't even known that they existed.

He should call his father.

Maybe John would know what to do. And he had been injured by the demons as well, so Sam should warn him not to let the wounds go untreated for too long.

But Sam already knew what his father's reaction to the call would be.

Of course he'd be worried about Dean, even if he most certainly wasn't going to let it show. But they had split up for a reason, and Sam didn't think that Dean running a fever was enough of a reason for John to come rushing to their aid. And their father had been a hunter for so many years now, he knew not to let wounds go untreated. Especially if he was on the road alone, without backup.

If Sam called him now, John would only berate him for breaking the silence that was supposed to protect them. No, Sam was in this alone now, he could as well spare himself the lecture. However Dean was going to get through this, it was Sam's job to make sure he did.

He cast a long look at his brother, lying pale on the bed with his cheeks flushed from the fever. A thin sheen of sweat covered his face, but he still wasn't moving. Sam sighed and returned to the bedside. Settling down on the edge of the mattress he reached for the thermometer again. If he only got the fever under control, could stop it from rising further, then things weren't looking quite as grim anymore.

But he should have known that things were never easy when his brother's health was concerned. Dean's skin was hot and sweaty, and Sam didn't even need to wait for the beep of the thermometer to know that the fever hadn't gone down in the slightest.

103.4°.

"Damn it, Dean."

Definitely not what Sam would call sinking. The fever wasn't yet high enough to send him into spurts of panic, but Sam had to stop it from rising further. Whatever it took.

He got up from the bed and drew back the blanket. A low moan escaped Dean's lips as the cold air met his flushed and sweaty body, but right now the warmth of the blanket wasn't helping.

The calf packings were drying out already, so Sam hurried back in the bathroom and soaked all towels that he could find in cold water. He and Dean had a few towels of their own somewhere in the car in case he needed more later on, there was no time to think about resources. He'd soak all their clothes in cold water if that's what it took to get Dean's fever down.

Sam didn't care that he was dripping water wherever he went as he carried the towels over towards the bed.

Dean flinched as Sam wrapped the cold and wet towels around his calves again, but his eyes stayed closed and he showed no sign of awareness. Sam packed another folded towel on Dean's stomach and two more around Dean's upper arms.

"I'll be back in a moment," he said to his unconscious brother, then he hurried out of the motel room.

The ice machine was standing right next to the office door, just a few steps away, but right now it could as well have been halfway across the city in Sam's perception. It took him maybe a minute to come back into the room with a plastic cup full of ice, but his gaze immediately strayed back to his brother to see if anything had changed about him.

Dean had his face turned towards the door, his movement unconsciously tracking his brother's departure, but nothing else was different. Still flushed, still running a fever, still unconscious.

Sam closed the door behind himself, sat down on the mattress and poured some of the ice into the last remaining towel. The bone-aching fatigue was still there as he folded the towel up and pressed it against his brother's flushed forehead, but his mind was wide awake, and focussed on one thing only – Dean.

This was going to be a long night.

* * *

This is a four-chapter story. The next chapter should be up soon, and the story is entirely posted on DeanDamage (dot) com already, if you want to check out the site :) Thanks for reading, and as always, please let me know what you think.


	2. Chapter 2

Since the story is already finished, I am planning on posting one chapter per day. Which means here you go with chapter 2 for today.

On another note, the first chapter of the sequel to "**Whatever you do, don't let go**" is up and finished. The sequel is titled "**The Darkness Within**", and the first chapter can be found on my userprofile on **DeanDamage** (dot) **com**. I will put it up here on fanfiction net as well, but to promote DeanDamage, a great new archive for all things Dean-whump, that might take another week or two. So just go to my profile page, click the "homepage" link and it will take you directly to my profile on DeanDamage.

But here you go with chapter 2.

The lines in _italics_ are direct quotes taken from the episode "Shadow".

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 2**

Fire.

He was burning.

And the pain was tearing him apart.

Desperately, he tried to open his eyes, tried to turn his head and find out why he was burning, why there was nobody there to help him, why nobody put out the fire and stopped the pain.

His mouth felt dry as a desert and his tongue like a piece of sandpaper wedged in between, chafing at cracked lips with every movement. Just thinking about speaking hurt. But he had to know.

He had to find Sam.

Had to make sure that he was all right.

And if he wasn't, Dean simply had to put out the fire himself and make sure that his brother was all right.

His throat hurt as if he had swallowed a bunch of razor blades, but he swallowed dryly and forced himself to find some semblance of voice. A hoarse croak, a whisper, a yell, it didn't matter. He just needed to know.

He needed to…

He needed…

"Sam."

So a hoarse croak it was. But it was met with nothing but silence.

No answer.

No Sam.

"Sammy."

The following 'Where are you?' remained unspoken, but he thought it will all the little strength he had left.

Where are you?

Sam had always been there. When Dean had woken up hurt or in pain, Sam had always been there. Except after Sam had left for college, but he didn't think about that time. Never. Because Sam was back again and things were back to normal.

_Things will never be the same that they were before._

Except he was in pain and Sam wasn't there.

_Go back to school, be a person again._

"Sam."

No. Sam had to be here. He had come back, he wouldn't leave again just like that. Not without saying anything. Not without giving him a chance to fight for Sam to stay.

_Stop dragging him over god's green earth._

But Sam had already left, not too long ago. He had left him alone in the middle of nowhere.

Maybe he had gone again. Maybe Sam had left him again, even though he had come back the last time.

Maybe this time he had left for good.

_Go back to school._

Please. Don't go. Don't leave me. Not now. Not after you came back. Not when I'm burning and the pain is tearing me apart and I really need to hear your voice.

Please.

_Go back to school._

"Sam."

_Be a person again._

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

"He's burning up, Caleb." Hand buried in his hair, Sam cast a glance at his brother's feverish form on the bed. "I cleaned the wounds with holy water again and again, and I've practically covered him in wet towels and ice packs, but he's still running one hell of a fever."

Sam listened to the older hunter's voice for a few seconds, his eyes never straying far from Dean's unconscious form, afraid to miss any changes that might occur.

"The fever's not rising anymore, but it's been around 103.8° for the past hour and I can't seem to get it down. I just thought, because you helped Dean identify the daevas, you might know something more about the kind of injuries they cause."

He listened for another moment as Caleb interrupted with a question.

"No, he's not conscious. He's mumbling things, but he doesn't react to anything."

Dean twitched slightly in his sleep, and Sam was at his brother's bedside in two big steps. The cold pack on Dean's forehead had slid down to the pillow, and Sam gently put it back into its place. Dean moaned in his sleep as the cold and wet cloth touched his flushed forehead, but didn't try to move away from the touch.

Caleb's voice tore Sam out of his silent observation of his brother.

"What? Yeah, I'd be grateful if you could ask around because I'm slowly running out of options here. Thanks."

Sam closed the phone and put it on the nightstand. With a sigh he leaned forward and put a hand against Dean's cheek. His hand hadn't even touched the flushed skin yet when he felt the heat against his fingers.

"God Dean, please wake up. I could really use a little help here."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

_Why don't you let him do what he wants to do?_

But he had. He always had. What Sam wanted had always been Dean's priority. No matter how screwed their lives were, Dean had given everything until he had nothing left in him just so that Sam could have a normal life. As normal as possible.

_Let him do what he wants to do._

But he had. He had let Sam leave, had let him go to Stanford, go to college and leave his entire life behind. He had let his brother do that, even though it had broken Dean's heart and left a huge hole inside of him that nothing had been able to fill.

And he had let Sam leave a second time, to go to California and search for their Dad. Had let him leave in anger.

Letting Sam leave had hurt even more the second time around.

But Sam had come back to him. Both times.

Had saved him.

Sam wouldn't leave.

_When this is over, you're gonna have to let me go my own way._

But that wasn't true. Sam had always planned on leaving.

He might have come back, but he hadn't come back to stay.

Sooner or later he was going to leave him again, because this life, the only life Dean knew how to live, was not the life Sam wanted to live.

Dean was living on borrowed time, the countdown ticking in the background and marking down the hours and days until Sam would take off again.

Maybe he hadn't tried hard enough. Maybe he hadn't given enough, hadn't shown his brother how much he needed him around. How much he needed his family around. Because everybody left him.

First Dad. Even though Dean had always done everything the man had wanted, no matter the price on his soul, Dad had left him.

Then Sam.

But Dean couldn't be alone. He needed to have his family, his purpose, his anchor in his life if he wanted to keep risking it for complete strangers who mostly didn't even know how much pain Dean spared them.

Maybe that was what was hurting so much right now. Maybe he was finally feeling all that pain that he had tried to shield others from over the past years.

Dean needed his father, he needed his brother, to deal with all that pain and loss and heartache, but both of them didn't want to stay with him.

Only the pain stayed with him.

Somehow, that had to be his fault.

_You, me and Dad. I want us to be together again. I want us to be a family again._

It was the only thing he needed. The only thing he had ever wished for.

_Things will never be the same that they were before._

The only wish that couldn't be granted.

_They could be._

And hope was only going to crush him in the end.

_I don't want them to be._

Sam didn't want to stay. This had never been about returning to his brother's side, about returning to the hunt. Not for Sam. For Sam it had always been a short term arrangement. Sam had never returned for Dean. He had returned for revenge, for finding their father, for getting answers to the question what had killed their mother and his girlfriend.

Never for Dean.

_When this is over, you're gonna have to let me go my own way._

And Sam's own way didn't cross Dean's path.

Sam didn't want to stay with his brother.

Dean didn't know what, but there must have been something he had done wrong, something that had pushed Sam away.

_Go back to school. Be a person again._

Sam didn't want to be the person he was now. Not the person life on the road with his brother made him. He had always wanted to be someone else.

_Be a person again._

Sam couldn't be what he wanted to be with his brother. With his brother's lifestyle. Maybe Sam had changed so much – or maybe he had always been like that and Dean had just never seen how much he hated that life.

Maybe Sam needed the settled life, the apartment, the girlfriend, the white picket fence. Needed them more than his brother.

No matter what it was, there was one thing that was for sure. Sam was going to leave.

Maybe he had already left, because if he was still there Dean wouldn't be in such pain right now. Sam would not let Dean suffer this pain if he was there.

He only left Dean to suffer in pain when he left, but that was a different kind of pain. That was the kind of pain for which there was no medication. The pain of a large piece of your soul being ripped away, without a warning, without a chance to stop it.

Sam had left, was going to leave, would always, _always_ leave him because he wasn't worth staying with. He was only worth being left alone, being left on fire, with pain so white and hot that it was tearing him apart. And it was a pain he had to bear, because somehow he hadn't been a good enough brother to make Sam stay.

He should have given more.

Now he didn't have anything left to give but pain.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

"Hey Dad, it's Sam."

Sam had been pacing beside the bed as the phone had rung, but once his father's voicemail picked up, all the strength seemed to leave his legs and he sank down at the food end of the bed.

"Listen, I know you said that it's dangerous to get into contact, but it's Dean. He…those daevas hurt him worse than he let on, and I didn't notice. You know how he…anyway, I treated the wounds, but he's running a high fever. I…I just called to tell you, to make sure you treat your own wounds in time…" Sam laughed and shook his head. "I probably don't need to tell you that. I just wanted to let you know. I'll take care of Dean, you know that, but if there's any way you know how to help him, just…just give me a call. He's not conscious, and I'm a bit worried that he's…just call me if you know anything, okay? Thanks."

Sam closed the phone and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

_I'll take care of Dean._

Yeah, right.

If taking care meant swaddling him in wet towels and helplessly sitting by as his fever kept on climbing, then yeah. He was taking care of Dean.

Doing a bang up job of it, too.

If it was Sam who was sick, Dean would know what to do. And if he didn't know, he'd figure it out. No matter who or what he might have to hurt, threaten or beg to find out the cure, Dean wouldn't hesitate for one second. He wouldn't just sit by and hope and pray for the fever to sink again.

Sam felt helpless, in the truest sense of the word. He had never felt this helpless before in his entire life.

Truth was, Sam was freaking out. Dean was always the one who seemed to know what to do, and who took charge even when he didn't. But Dean wasn't strong now, he wasn't even conscious, and the fact that he had no idea what exactly was wrong with his brother scared the crap out of Sam.

There was nothing he could do, nothing but go through the same motions that he had gone through for the past couple of hours. Check the cold compresses all over Dean's body. Soak the towels in cold water, wrap them around Dean's body again. Check his temperature again.

The fever was still way over 103.5°, Dean still showed not a single sign of awareness, and Sam was getting scared. He took the cold and wet cloth off his brother's forehead and pressed the back of his hand against this.

"Dean, please. I need you to wake up, okay? I need you to help me figure out what's wrong with you. I called everybody I could think of, and I don't know what else I'm supposed to do. So…I guess I need my big brother to do that. You even get a free shot to call me a girl for getting scared by something as simple as a fever. That's a once in a lifetime opportunity. But only if you wake up. Think you can do that for me?"

Dean didn't react, and the skin on his forehead was so hot that Sam withdrew his hand and put the cold compress back on.

He had called Caleb, Pastor Jim, Bobby and Joshua. Neither of them knew how to treat a wound caused by a daeva. They were all keeping their ears open, but Sam didn't expect an answer from either of them anytime soon. No, it was him and Dean against the rest of the world. As usual.

And as usual the rest of the world seemed hell-bent on decimating the number of living Winchesters.

But that would happen only over his dead body. Sam wasn't going to let his brother die. Not on his watch.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Fire and pain had turned into ice and pain.

He didn't know when, or why. Didn't care. Because the pain was still there, the pain was all encompassing. Fire or ice, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered, because he was alone.

Sam wasn't there.

Sam had left him again, he had done something to push his little brother away, _again_, and the darkness he felt creeping towards him right now was the price he had to pay for that. And it was a price he was willing to pay because without Sam, it didn't much matter whether he struggled to keep in the light or allowed himself to fall into the darkness.

_The way you treat your brother like luggage._

He never had. Sam wasn't luggage. Sam was the reason he kept going.

God, he was so cold.

Ice was creeping over his body, was pressing against his skin, creeping into every pore, chasing away the last remnants of warmth.

Was this what dying felt like?

Dean had no idea, but the ice was creeping up his chest now, tightening around him like an iron band.

He couldn't breathe.

He was all alone, there was ice running through his veins, and he couldn't breathe.

He had always envisioned his death in a blaze of gunfire, or jumping in front of his brother in order to save him.

Not like this.

_I want us to be a family again._

He didn't want that. He _needed_ that. Needed it like air to breathe. But he couldn't breathe, and that was probably the clearest sign that he was all alone.

_Things will never be the same that they were before._

The darkness was encompassing him now, and with the certain knowledge that he was alone Dean Winchester for the first time in his life gave up the fight and embraced it.

_When this is over, you're gonna have to let me go my own way._

It's over now Sammy. I hope your other life is going to make you happier.

I sure as hell tried, but it wasn't enough.

I'm sorry.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Lifting Dean's heavy limp weight on the bed earlier had been difficult.

Dragging his still unconscious, still heavy and still entirely limp brother into the bathroom was a task that strained Sam's exhausted body to the limits. But he didn't know what else to do. The calf packings and cold compresses seemed to evaporate without helping anything, and Dean's fever still hadn't gone down. On the contrary, it had started rising again, and the moment it had gone beyond that dreaded mark of 104°, the bubble of panic which Sam had suppressed for the past hours had burst.

This wasn't the time for gentle movements, or for taking care. Now it was time for drastic measures. Sam took care not to pull on the freshly stitched wound in Dean's side, but that was about all the finesse Sam could muster up as he lugged Dean's unconscious form into the bathroom.

During his earlier, careless trip to the bathroom for a refreshing shower, Sam hadn't paid any mind to it, but as he pushed open the door now he started to develop a deep seated dislike for the motel they had booked into. The king sized bed was one thing, an acceptable inconvenience. But that half-tub, the strange hybrid between a shower stall and a bathtub that had been stunted in growth, was exactly the opposite of what Sam needed now. He needed room to manoeuvre his brother around, and room was the one thing this bathroom was severely lacking.

With a grunt of effort, Sam lugged Dean over towards the tub and hoisted his brother up on the rim.

"Okay, this is probably going to hurt, but I need to get your fever down."

Hunched over the bathtub, Sam couldn't hold his brother's weight as he slid Dean's legs over the rim and tried to lower him gently into the tub. Sam strained to keep a hold on Dean, but gravity and one hundred eighty-plus pounds of unconscious brother did their work and Dean slid out of his brother's grasp. He dropped the last few inches, the side of his hip hitting the stained porcelain on the way, and only Sam's quick grab for Dean's lolling head saved him from a probably very painful collision with the tiles on the wall.

Despite the knock against his injured hip, Dean didn't so much as twitch a muscle. The fact that not even serious pain seemed to penetrate through Dean's unconsciousness, sent a burst of panic through Sam. He tore the shower head out of its fixture and turned on the cold water.

If cold compresses weren't going to work, Sam hoped and prayed that an ice cold shower was going to do the trick. Because otherwise, he had run out of options, and that was a thought he wasn't willing to accept. The only other chance he'd have left then would be to call an ambulance, and a doctor in a hospital wouldn't know the right remedy for a daeva wound either. No, if Dean was brought to a hospital, the only difference would be that Sam was going to be kept apart from his brother while the doctors tried to get his fever down.

And that was not going to happen.

Because this had to work. This was going to work.

Dean moaned as Sam directed the spray of cold water towards his head. The tub was too small, Dean was sitting in it even though his muscles weren't ready to hold his body upright, and his head was lolling away from the water. Sam quickly knelt down next to the tub and leaned towards Dean, pressing his brother's head against his shoulder with his free hand.

The cold water was soaking Sam's shirt, but he didn't even notice. His entire focus was on Dean, on getting the cold water to cool down the fever-flushed skin, to finally bring the fever down do a degree that was no longer dangerous. He didn't care that the water was soaking the fresh bandages around Dean's side, that he was getting water everywhere on the floor, that his legs were getting numb from kneeling beside the tub on the cold tile floor.

"Come on Dean. You won't let something like a fever bring you down, will you? That's not going to do your reputation any good. Brought down by a thing you can't even see? By a shadow demon? That's not the way you want to go and we both know it. I'm not going to let that happen, so you'd better wrap your stubborn head around that. You can as well wake up now."

Talking to Dean and waiting for a reaction was like hoping for a miracle. One that didn't happen – no reaction to Sam's voice was forthcoming.

Dean just hung there in the bathtub, soaking wet and shivering, his skin still flushed with fever. His head was a heavy weight on Sam's shoulder, and the only thing about this whole situation that was even remotely reassuring was the feeling of Dean's breaths brushing against Sam's neck.

Something clenched in Sam's chest as he realized that he was fighting a losing battle. The fever might have dropped a slight bit, but nowhere near enough to calm Sam any.

Choking down a sob, Sam pressed Dean's head against his shoulder and started running his hand through the short, wet hair.

"I'm not going to let you die, do you hear me?"

Over and over he ran his hand through the wet and cold hair, over the wet and cold skin of Dean's scalp.

"I'm not going to let this take you. Not here. Not now."

Sam kept Dean in the tub, kept running cold water over Dean's body until slight shivers started running through his brother's body. The fever was dangerous, it would cause severe damage if it was too high for too long. But it wouldn't do any good if Sam allowed Dean to catch pneumonia on top of everything else, either.

And if lugging Dean into the bathtub had been no small feat, lifting a wet and slippery Dean back out of the tub proved to be even more of a challenge. For one heart-stopping moment Sam lost his grip on his brother and Dean nearly dropped back into the tub, and only a hearty grip that didn't make too many concessions to Dean's injured state saved him from falling.

Sam turned off conscious thought, didn't waste any resources on anything but getting his brother back on the bed. Dean was still wet as Sam dropped him on the rumpled sheets, but the earlier marathon of cold compresses had left the sheets damp, anyway. Sam would simply move his brother over to the dry side of the bed in a few minutes.

But for now, he needed to check Dean's fever again.

And Sam could only hope and pray that it had finally gone down, because if it hadn't, he didn't know what he would do. Didn't know what was left to do.

But as Sam reached for the thermometer on the bedside table, a distressed moan made him turn immediately back towards his brother.

Just in time to see Dean starting to convulse on the bed.

* * *

Thanks a lot for reading. As always, please let me know what you think. Thanks.


	3. Chapter 3

As promised, here you go with chapter 3. It's a bit shorter than the previous chapters, but there was no other way to logically break the chapters off other than this. I will put up the last chapter tomorrow.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 3**

He was floating.

Floating in the darkness, away from the heat and the pain. All he remembered was not being able to breathe, iron bands around his chest, and giving in to the darkness.

Maybe this was dying.

But if it was, then dying was pretty much a disappointment. No flashy slideshow of the important parts of his life, no big revelations about the mysteries of life, death, the universe and everything.

Just darkness, and some lingering pain, and a gnawing feeling in his gut that there was something important he had forgotten.

And distantly, there was something else but darkness. He had no idea what it was, it was just out of reach of real comprehension. But it was definitely there, in the darkness, drawing him in.

A sound.

Nothing he could pinpoint, just a sound somewhere in the darkness. A low murmur in the background, rising and falling, sometimes louder, sometimes growing faint, like a waterfall of pleasant noise. A sound that was always repeating itself, like a scratched record that made the needle jump into repeat.

He had no idea what the sound was, but he latched onto it, and the more he strained to hear it, the clearer it became, never quite fading out of his ability to hear it even if it grew fainter.

A voice.

Murmuring, whispering, speaking – he couldn't tell. But it was definitely a voice.

The words were unclear, and they didn't matter. The voice was something to hold on to, it was soothing, and calming, and a way out of the darkness. If he listened to it, he didn't need to think about the pain.

And he listened.

He listened to the voice, trying to make out its origin, trying to make out what it was saying.

He listened to the voice even as the darkness closed around him again.

…

…

…

Everything was bright. It hurt his eyes and his head, and he had no idea what kind of fire could burn so brightly and create such a heat at the same time.

But then something cool and soothing touched his forehead, and he struggled to turn his head to the side, hoping to catch more of that much longed for coolness.

The world started moving then, everything turned and shifted, the brightness spun around him until his head was resting against something solid and warm, and the blissful cool touch returned to his forehead. Something was thudding softly against his ear, familiar and unaccustomed at the same time, a steady beat that threatened to lull him back into the darkness. Soothing.

Safe.

Something pulled over his eyes then, something warm and large and calloused that blocked out the light, and that voice said something over the gentle regular thudding.

_Go back to sleep._

Sleep sounded better than darkness. If it was only sleep, then he would wake up again. And though he couldn't have said why, he trusted the voice.

So he closed his eyes under the gentle touch and allowed himself to drift off.

…

…

…

He was freezing. Everything was so cold, his whole body was shaking and his teeth were chattering. Every single cell in his body was icy cold and frozen, and he had no control over the violent shivers that wracked his frame.

And then something warm curled up against his back, so warm that it hurt against his cold skin. But despite the pain he tried to lean into the warmth, tried to draw from it in the faint hope that it was going to chase the ice away.

Something warm sneaked around his side and splayed over his chest, right above his heart, warmth creeping through the skin into his frozen flesh. And he welcomed it, leaned into the touch that encircled him and held him tightly, kept him from shattering in the icy cold. Because he was sure that the shivers would have torn him apart if there had been nothing there to hold him together.

But somebody _was_ there to hold him together. There was warmth behind him and warmth around him and something warm gushing over his cheek. He was swaddled, wrapped so tightly in blankets and warmth that he couldn't move, couldn't do a thing to protect himself if the darkness came creeping at him again, but somehow, deep inside he knew that for once he didn't need to.

_It's all right._

He distinctly remembered the voice from before, and even though it didn't calm the shivers, it calmed the turmoil inside of him, allowed him to relax despite the cold and the trembling and the fear.

_I've got you._

And while every fibre of his being protested against it, opposed the mere idea that he might need somebody else to watch over him, to hold him together and protect him from the ice that was trying to kill him from the inside out, that soft-whispered promise was enough to let him give in. For once in his life, Dean Winchester accepted this need, this inner craving for somebody else to shield him from the things that lurked in the night and tried to kill you with ice and pain.

Because the voice said that it was all right, that somebody else was there, someone trusted and loved. Someone he didn't need to doubt, and so he didn't.

And eventually, between the shivering and the chattering and the warmth, he fell asleep.

…

…

…

Sweatpants.

Grey sweatpants.

No matter how often he blinked to clear his vision, that was all he saw. And while his head felt as if somebody had stuffed it with cotton, Dean was fairly sure that he wasn't used to waking up to the sight of grey sweatpants less than an inch away from his eyes.

For a long time, that was all he saw, and no matter how much he wracked his brain, he couldn't come up with a good explanation why he would wake up with his head pillowed on a leg that was clad in a pair of worn grey sweatpants. There was a gentle warm pressure against the side of his head, it had been there the entire time, even though he only now noticed it. It probably wasn't the reason why his head felt far too big and heavy to think, but it was something else he couldn't quite explain.

It shouldn't be so hard, forming a coherent thought. Figuring out where he was. Why he was there. What it was about those sweatpants. But it was, it was the hardest thing, and finally Dean admitted defeat with a sigh.

"Dean?"

Sam.

Suddenly it all made sense, in a weird and warped way. He still didn't know where he was or why he woke up with his head pillowed on Sam's leg when their iron rule about sharing a bed was that you respected the middle of it as a border not to be crossed, or suffered the consequences.

But the rest made sense.

Well, not really, but if Sam was there, it wasn't that urgent for Dean to connect all the dots. Sam could do that for him later, when the fuzzy feeling in his head had gone.

"Are you awake?"

He wanted respond, to say that yes, he was awake and why the hell was Sam sitting on his side of the bed with his leg underneath Dean's head? He had the answer verbalized in his head, but all that came out was a tired groan that could have meant a million things, or nothing at all.

But it seemed enough of an answer for Sam. He started to move, the leg muscles underneath Dean's head tensing so that for a moment Dean was afraid that Sam was just going to pull out the leg and let his head drop to the mattress. But then there were hands on his sides, lifting him, shifting him around until he was half-sitting, half-leaning against Sam's shoulder, and a glass was being pressed against his mouth.

"You need to drink some more water, I've barely gotten any liquids into you last night."

The question what exactly Sam meant with _last night_ popped up in his mind, or why his brother should have needed to try and get liquids into him in the first place, but then the glass was tilted and he had too much to do with swallowing the water, trying to get it down his throat as quickly as possible, because he had been parched without even noticing. Sam gave him the water in small sips, too small for Dean's liking, and before he knew it the glass was empty and the hands were moving him back into a lying position again.

It went even quicker than raising him up had been, one moment Dean had been greedily gulping down water, the next his head was resting on Sam's leg again, his brother's hand over his forehead.

"Seems like your fever finally broke."

He had absolutely no idea what Sam was talking about, but his brother sounded relieved, so Dean took that as a good thing. Again, he wanted to ask why Sam was sitting on his bed, pretending to be a human pillow, but all those balls of cotton in his head seemed to be growing, making it more and more difficult to form a coherent thought.

Sam's hand moved from his forehead to the side of his head, a gentle warm pressure against his scalp, one more piece of the puzzle falling into place.

"You should get some more sleep."

Dean wanted to protest, wanted to tell Sam that he was fine, that he was old enough to decide that for himself, and that he was used to crappy motel pillows under his head instead of his brother's leg, but he couldn't seem to form any words. Because he was waddled up in a cocoon of blankets that was warm, finally the _right_ kind of warm. Not fire and not ice but soft and comfortable, the kind of warmth that melts muscles into the mattress and makes you want to stay in the bed forever. It was the kind of warmth that made him unable to move even if he wanted to, and he preferred the grey sweatpants over crappy motel pillows any day. Even his head was warm under Sam's hand, the touch a constant reminder that Sam was _there_, and for some reason that he couldn't quite grasp that thought was the most important of all.

Sam was there.

So it was okay to close his eyes and fall asleep.

…

…

* * *

As always, thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think. Thank you.


	4. Chapter 4

Here's the 4th and last chapter of this story. Thanks for sticking around, and I hope you liked it. For those of you who are interested, the sequel to "Whatever you do, don't let go" will be up here on my profile at some point this week. I think I'll start posting in two or three days, something like that. The story is called "The Darkness Within", and the first two chapter are already up on DeanDamage (dot) com. Now enough of the shameless self-advertisment, I promise ;-)

I tried to keep the characters true to themselves in this chapter, considering that the story is still set in season 1, where Sam and Dean's relationship was still a whole lot different than towards the end of season 3.

Enjoy!

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**Chapter 4**

Waking up normally wasn't a disconcerting process for Dean. He was used to snapping to awareness from one moment to the next, and years of his father's training and living a hunter's life had taught him the necessity of instant awareness. But this time, it took quite a while for the last fuzzy clouds to clear from his head after he blinked his eyes open.

He was in a motel room that he didn't remember checking into. It was easy enough to identify that, seeing that motel rooms were their main lodgings, anyway. They all somehow looked the same in different shades of ugly, and the hideous décor of this one really topped most of what Dean had seen over the years. Also, he was lying on the left side of what he had quickly identified as a king size bed. Which was puzzling, since he and Sam always took two queen sized beds unless none were available, and he really didn't remember checking into any motel, queen or king sized beds.

Even more puzzling was that he was lying on the side of the bed that faced away from the door. That absolutely didn't make sense, because it was his habit to pick the sleeping spot closest to the door. Closest to anybody or anything which might come into their room at night. In between them and Sam.

What made even less sense than everything that had gone through his head up until this point – none of which had really made any sense at all, truthfully, was that while the other side of the bed looked rumpled and slept in, it was also empty. Sam was nowhere in sight.

Not immediately seeing his brother upon waking up sent an unreasonable spike of fear through Dean. They were grown men, Sam could take care of himself while getting breakfast or going on a run. True, Dean liked to know where his brother was, and though he might prefer to have Sam within sight, he normally didn't feel panicked when he didn't immediately have a clue where he was.

Only, now he did. An unreasonable amount of worry and fear spiked through his sleep-befuddled brain, and he tried to roll from his side to his back in an attempt to get a look at the entire room, to check if Sam was maybe in the bathroom. And if he wasn't, then Dean would just roll over entirely and get up out of bed to get to the bottom of this mystery.

At least that was the plan.

As soon as he rolled onto his back and his left hip came to rest on the mattress, a sharp spike of pain shot up his entire left side. It had come out of nowhere, completely unexpected, and it left him breathless and with dark spots blurring the edges of his vision.

"Whoa, easy there."

Sam's voice.

The panic withdrew and crawled back into the hole it had crept from, leaving the rapid breathing and frantic thudding of his heart as sole reactions to the agonizing pain that had shot up his hip and was only now slowly, excruciatingly slowly, ebbing away. The mattress dipped slightly and Dean opened his eyes, surprised that he didn't remember when he had closed them.

"You really shouldn't be moving around too much, Dean."

Sam was sitting just a few inches away from Dean, a worried expression darkening his hazel eyes. But it wasn't that Dean was seeing. No, what Dean's gaze was immediately drawn to were the dark shadows under his brother's eyes – his brother's bloodshot eyes – and the stubble of a beard that was covering his cheeks and chin around his mouth, a mouth with lips drawn into a tight, worried line.

The image just didn't make sense. It didn't really fit.

Sam looked as if he hadn't slept in a couple of nights, like he had been part of a blood donation that had gone seriously bad. Pale skin, exhausted eyes, tired lines all over his face. It looked all kinds of wrong. But underneath the fatigue and the worry there was a warm shimmer in his eyes as he regarded his older brother.

"How bad is the pain?"

Dean realized that he was staring dumbly up at his brother, and quickly gave a small shake of his head to tell Sam that it was nothing, the pain barely noticeable. Which is kinda was, by now. Except for a bone-deep pulsing that felt as if somebody was thudding and ice pick against his hip bone with every heartbeat. But he had been through worse. A little sting in his hip was no reason to worry Sam, after all.

Sam took the head shake in silently, then he shook his own head and laughed, without any mirth behind it.

"Cut the crap, Dean. The fact that turning over in bed makes you cry out in pain kinda ruins the whole macho bullshit façade."

Cry out in pain? He most certainly hadn't cried out in anything, much less pain.

"It's not that bad." He rasped out, regretting his decision to speak as soon as the first syllable made its way up his throat, sliding on sandpaper and razorblades. Sam leaned forward and reached for something on the bedside table. A few seconds later, a glass appeared in Dean's line of vision, filled with a clear liquid. Chances that it were vodka or gin weren't particularly big, and admittedly the idea of drinking something against the scratching in his throat seemed appealing, but Dean had no idea how Sam imagined him drinking the water, prone as he was lying on the bed.

The answer came just as Dean tried to push his hands into the mattress for leverage, pain in his hip be damned. A large hand reached for the back of his neck, lifting his head clear off the mattress effortlessly. Dean was startled at being manoeuvred around like a rag doll, and his immediate reaction was to swat at his brother, trying to dislodge his Sam's hold on him and tell him that he was old enough to sit up on his own while drinking.

His hand hit something solid, the metal of his ring clinging against glass, and Sam shot up from his perch on the edge of the mattress as the water sloshed up at him.

"Damn it Dean, what the hell are you doing?"

Sam was glaring down at him, wiping at the wet stains on his shirt, and the look in his brother's eyes only served to confuse Dean even further. Sam was angry, major-league pissed, and while Dean would be the first to admit that his brother was big on the whole mountain out of a molehill thing, looking ready to start throwing punches because of some spilled water definitely was a slight overreaction.

So he did what he always did when he had no idea why exactly Sam was irritated – he answered with a healthy dose of irritation of his own.

"I was trying to sit up, what did you think I was doing? You might enjoy playing Florence Nightingale, but you'll have to find somebody else to practice with."

Sam stared at him, fury sparking in his eyes, and for a moment Dean thought that he was about to end up on the receiving end of an outbreak worthy of John Winchester. Because no matter how much Sam denied it, he could match tempers with their father easily. But the moment passed without anything happening, and eventually Sam took a step back from the bed and crossed his arms over his chest.

"So turning over in bed puts you in a world of pain, but you want to sit up all on your own? Fine, be my guest."

Yeah, the pain. Dean hadn't forgotten about it, couldn't possibly have because his hip was still throbbing, but he really hadn't thought it would be a problem. It was only sitting up, after all. And it wasn't as if he could back out of this one now, anyway. Dean knew a challenge when he saw one, and right now Sam was challenging him to try and sit up on his own, without the help of Samuel Winchester, MD.

Well, better peel those eyes Sammy, because big brother is about to show you how it's done.

The dull throbbing in Dean's hip increased ferociously the moment he pushed his hands into the mattress and tried to lever his body up into a sitting position. Something was pulling at his side, a tight and uncomfortable feeling that he immediately associated with stitches. Only, he didn't remember being stitched up. The pain was definitely worthy of at least 10 to 15 pokes of needle and thread through his skin, and it was only with gritted teeth and a lot of suppressed groaning that Dean managed to lift his upper body from the mattress.

His arms were feeling far less reliable than they usually felt, too. Dean was hard pressed to just sink back into the mattress and admit defeat, to try and drink something later when the mere act of sitting up no longer seemed comparable to the effort it took to scale the Rocky Mountains. But Sam was watching him, watching him with that expression in his eyes that clearly said the biggest of all _I told you so's_ was about to hit him if he gave up now.

No, if Dean Winchester wanted to sit up, it was going to take more than phantom pain in his hip and a pair of weak arms to stop him from sitting up.

It took ages, and it left him pale, sweating and breathing hard, but finally Dean managed to push himself up into a sitting position on the bed. He didn't say anything as Sam non-too gently stuffed another pillow behind his back and pushed the refilled glass of water into his hand. The anger was still there in Sam's expression, smouldering just underneath the surface in every of his movements, but for now he seemed to be holding it back.

Dean struggled to keep the glass steady in his shaking hands and bring it up to his lips without spilling the water. He knew that Sam was watching him closely, searching for the obvious sign of weakness that would be the starting point of his lecture.

Dean thought he managed the whole process of drinking well enough for the fact that he was feeling ready to drop and sleep for a week. His hands were barely shaking when he wrapped both of them around the glass, and he managed to drink a few sips of water without causing a flash flood. Okay, so some water ran out of the corner of his mouth and dribbled down his chin, but not even Sam could start the big tirade because of that.

Sam was silently watching him, taking the empty glass when Dean handed it over with a triumphant expression on his face.

"See? Told you I was fine."

Sam put the glass away with a snort. "Oh yes, of course. You've grit your teeth and looked as if you were about to pass out from the pain, but you were stubborn enough to sit up even though your own body told you that it was no good idea. Now you're probably in even more pain, just because you had to prove a point. Yeah, you've got me convinced that you're fine. I hope you're happy now!"

Dean was taken a little aback by the sharpness in Sam's voice.

"Dude, what is your problem?"

"What my problem is?" Sam took a step closer to the bed, his 6'4'' frame looming over his brother and blocking everything else from sight. "That attitude right there, that's my problem!"

"What?"

Sam spread his arms, making himself even larger, if that was possible. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, Dean. Your damn stubborn streak, the fact that you'd much rather be in serious pain than let anybody help you, that's what I'm talking about."

Dean crossed his arms in front of his chest, meeting defiance with defiance. "Dude, I was just sitting up."

"I'm not talking about your masochistic attempt at sitting up!" Sam threw his hands in the air in exasperation, then let them drop to his sides again. "I don't care if you try to sit up, you can do jack-knives and push-ups for all that I care."

Dean raised an eyebrow, his internal alarm bells ringing loudly. This was way out of the usual scope of Sam behaviour, and in all honesty Dean had absolutely no idea what was going on with his little brother.

"Okay Sam, you lost me. What the hell are you talking about?"

There must have been a trigger word somewhere in those two sentences, even though they sounded innocent enough in Dean's ears. But as soon as he had said them, Sam lurched back towards the bed in two big leaps, back to looming above his older brother.

"I'm talking about the fact that you didn't say that you were hurt, Dean! I'm talking about the fact that those daevas sliced you open from navel to hip, but you didn't say a word about it. No, because everything else was so much more important! It was so much more important to split up with Dad and get the hell out of dodge! So instead of saying anything you drove for over four hours, silently dripping A-positive all over the front seat because being injured just didn't fit into your itinerary, right?"

Dean drew a breath to reply something, even though he had no idea what he was going to say, but Sam cut him off with a sharp gesture.

"No Dean, you'll listen to me now! You nearly crashed the car because you were tired and beat up and bleeding and too damn stubborn to admit it! Do you even remember what happened after we left Chicago and you nearly crashed the car? The next thing you did was take a face-plant on the motel room floor, that's what you did. You fainted, from the blood loss, and from the fever you were running by the time I found out that something was wrong with you in the first place."

Sam pushed his hair out of his eyes with one hand, pointing the index finger of his other hand accusingly at Dean, who was starting to feel more than just slightly uncomfortable under his brother's gaze.

"Oh yes, the fever. Let me tell you about that, because that's the real highlight of the story. Because you were too much of an idiot and let your wound go untreated, you were running a high fever. I washed out your wounds with holy water, which wasn't pretty by the way, I stitched you up, and then I spent the next couple of hours trying to get your fever down. But since you never do anything halfway, you just had to get the frigging kind of fever that doesn't go down the normal way! I drenched you in cold compresses, and when that didn't help with anything but moisturizing the air, I dragged your heavy ass into the bathtub to get you under a cold shower. And you want to know what the result of that was, Dean? You had a seizure! Cramping, eyes rolling back in your head, clenched jaws, the whole works. I had to hold you down while you convulsed on the bed, hoping that you wouldn't bite off your own tongue!"

Dean frowned as he tried to remember any of what Sam was talking about, the fever, the ice bath, the seizure, but his brain came up with nothing at all. Sam, however, had talked himself into a full-blown rant, and he didn't seem finished by a long shot. He was pacing up and down in front of the bed, casting the occasional glare at Dean as he ranted off what seemed like quite a heap of frustration.

"That seizure scared the crap out of me, Dean. The only good thing about it, and I use the term _good_ very liberally here, was that after it was finally over, your fever dropped. And I don't know what it is with you man, but the moment that I started to relax, after hours of worrying that the fever was going to fry what little brain cells you have left in that big skull of yours, you start shivering so hard that I thought you were going to fall off the bed from it! One moment you're burning up, the next you're freezing as if you had been left outside in a Michigan mid-winter night! For over two hours! And guess what happened once that was over?"

It was a rhetorical question, and Dean had absolutely no intention to answer, but nevertheless Sam made a pregnant pause as if he was just waiting for Dean to dare and say something.

"Your fever went through the roof again! Back over 104°, right where it was before you started convulsing. So I lugged your heavy ass right back into the bathroom where we had a repeat performance of me trying to get your fever down with a cold shower. You've been out of it for the entire day yesterday and all of last night, with your fever constantly going up and down again. One half of the bed is drenched because of all the water I've sloshed on you over the past thirty hours, and I haven't slept for more than a few minutes at a time since we arrived here because I was too damn scared that the moment I fell asleep you were going to have another seizure, or stop breathing or something equally horrifying. I called everybody I knew asking for help, and if Bobby hadn't called back a few minutes after you had that seizure, your ass would be recovering in a hospital right now, because I was at my wit's end and ready and willing to call that ambulance.  
"So I don't frigging care whether you think you're ready to sit up on your own. Do whatever the hell you want, but don't give me any crap for trying to help you, okay?"

Sam kicked at the wastepaper basket that was standing at the foot end of the bed, and for a few seconds Dean simply stared at his brother. He still didn't remember what exactly had gone down over the past day. Pretty much everything after they had split up with their Dad was hazy, but he had a vague recollection of being in pain, of feeling first too hot, then too cold. It must have been bad for Sam to react that way, really bad, but it wasn't his fault that neither of them had known what a wound by a daeva could do if it was being left untreated.

As the silence stretched on, it became clear that Sam had gotten those things he felt he needed to say off his chest for now, and Dean thought it a good idea to try and steer the conversation back into safer waters.

"What did Bobby say?"

Sam looked up, frowning as if he had no idea what Dean was talking about. When his brain caught up with the question, he shrugged.

"That you're an idiot for letting a wound go untreated for so long. And that as far as he could tell after some research, if it hadn't killed you after a few hours, you'd probably be fine, you just had to ride it out. You know Bobby. _It won't be pretty, but that's what you get for being an idiot._"

Dean could hear the older hunter's gruff voice say those exact same words, and he couldn't help the smile that tugged on the corners of his mouth. That was Bobby for you.

The smile died very quickly when Sam, who had been walking over towards the small table on the other side of the room, suddenly spun around again.

"But you know what the real kicker about all this is?"

Dean didn't, but he guessed that if he admitted to that, it would only make things worse. So he waited for Sam to continue, and he didn't have to wait for long.

"All of it, the near-accident, the fever, the seizure, the ice baths, the shaking, all that wouldn't have been necessary if you had just said that you were hurt. The wounds on your forehead weren't that bad, and if you had said something about the wound in your side it would have been fine. Just one word, just a few minutes for cleaning out the wound and stitching it, then none of this would have happened."

"Sam, I…"

"No, I get it. I do, Dean. You and Dad had a plan, and you needed to go through with it, at whatever cost. Just like always. And just like always, there was no need to involve me in any of it. Well, I hope you're happy. Your whole splitting the family up plan worked just brilliant. Because of all the people I called for help, Dad is the only one who hasn't called back yet, if only to ask if you were still breathing. So congratulations on that, Dean. I hope you're proud of yourself."

The words stung, more than Dean was willing to admit. Dean told himself that he knew his father's reasons for not calling, that John surely was worried about him, but that he was even more worried about all their safety. But still, none of that knowledge could quite keep away the sting.

Besides, Sam was missing the whole point. The real reason why he hadn't wanted to tell his brother about his injury for as long as they hadn't left Chicago and their father behind.

"Dad wouldn't have left."

Sam's head snapped up, a frown marring his features. "What do you mean?"  
"If I had told you about the injury, before we split up. Dad wouldn't have left if he had known that I was hurt worse than he thought. You heard him Sammy,"

"It's Sam," Sam interrupted, and the tone of his voice added to the sting that Dean was already feeling.

"You heard him, all right? He was against splitting up at first because we were banged up so bad."

"Yeah, and you told him that we'd be fine. This…" Sam gestured around the room. "This isn't fine, Dean."

"No. And I know that you didn't want to split up so soon after meeting Dad in the first place. But you saw how easily Meg and those daevas got to us. That risk is too big, we can't take it for as long as we don't know what we're dealing with here. What's behind all this. And I promise you that I won't rest until we find Dad again and get all the answers we need, but for now this was the best solution. If we can't keep ourselves safe, we're never going to find the thing that killed Mom and Jessica."

Sam shook his head, his lower lip jutted forward in a way that reminded Dean of a pouting younger version of his brother. He knew that Sam didn't share his take on things, the reasons why he had made those decisions. But Dean would never forgive himself if something happened to their father, or to Sam, just because he was afraid to make a decision that might hurt him. That wasn't ever going to happen.

"Listen Sam, it was a mistake not to tell you that I was hurt. I know that, all right? But I couldn't tell you while Dad was still around, and to be honest, things got fuzzy pretty soon after that."

"You were driving for more than four hours, Dean."

"Yeah, and I remember maybe ten minutes of that time. It…it was a mistake, okay? I know that, and it won't happen again."

"You're damn right it won't." Sam was drawing himself up to his full height, and for a reason Dean couldn't quite grasp, a primal fear started to spread through him. Not fear of Sam, never that, but of what he was going to say next. Because from somewhere, unbidden, came the thought that Sam was leaving again, that he was steeling himself for telling Dean exactly that, and if that was the case Dean didn't know what he'd do.

"Sam?"

"It won't happen again Dean, because if this here," he gestured between them with the index finger of one hand, "with us on the road together, hunting together, if that's going to work, you need to start treating me as an equal. You might be my older brother, and I might have been away from hunting for more than three years, but I've learned the same things that you did. I'm in this just as deep as you are, and there won't be any more decision making over my head. I'm not a kid anymore, and it's about time you stopped treating me as one."

Asking Dean to stop looking out for his little brother, to worry about him and try to keep him safe, was like asking him to stop breathing. He couldn't.

But Sam was right in a way. Dean hadn't even listened to his brother's protests against splitting up. And no matter what Sam thought, on a hunt there wasn't always enough time for democratic decision making. But Sam was a good hunter, he had good instincts, and he definitely wasn't stupid. Besides, he looked like hell and Dean most certainly didn't want to push him into another rant right now. So he nodded.

"Okay."

Sam moved his head back and raised his eyebrows. "Okay?"

Dean should have known that giving he obvious answer was going to work just as well as disagreeing would have.

"What? It's what you wanted to hear, right?"

"I don't want you to tell me okay because you think I want to hear it, I want you to agree with me only if you mean it."

"And I do. You're not a kid anymore. I get that. It doesn't mean we're going to discuss each and every little detail about everything from now on, but I get what you're trying to say. So okay."

Sam looked at him for a few seconds, as if trying to judge whether Dean was sincere, then he nodded.

"Good."

He turned around again and walked towards the small kitchenette where he started pulling some bread, some other stuff Dean couldn't see clearly, and a carton of orange juice out of a cupboard. Dean didn't remember checking in here, and he most certainly didn't remember stopping for food.

"Where does all that stuff come from?"

Somehow, Dean couldn't see Sam going on a supply run, not if his fever had really been as bad as his brother had described. Sam only shrugged, his back still turned towards Dean.

"The kid who runs the night shift at the reception. I caught him as he was about to leave, and gave him a twenty to run some errands for me."

Dean put his foot in his mouth rather often, but even he knew that right now was not the best of time to berate his brother for spending their hard-earned money that way. Besides, probably had been the best solution in a less than ideal situation, even though Dean thought that ten dollars would have bought them a supply run just as well as the twenty had.

"What did you tell him?"

Another shrug. "That you had an altercation with a jealous husband and were out of it. After I gave him the twenty, he wasn't too curious anymore."

Dean nodded. He hated involving other people in their daily business, but sometimes it couldn't be avoided, he knew that. Better than having Sam starve himself while he was watching Dean go through his fever. Though judged by the full look of the bread package, Sam probably hadn't eaten much until he had know that Dean was out of the woods. Dean knew he wouldn't have, if their situations had been reversed.

For a few minutes, Dean watched in silence as Sam busied himself fixing up sandwiches. He felt exhaustion creep up on him again, but for now it felt good to just be awake and not fighting, or listening to his brother yell at him for things he didn't even remember. Sam's next words, when they were spoken, hit him completely out of the blue.

"I'm not going to leave, you know?"

Dean blinked and focussed his eyes on his brother's back, not sure he had heard right.

"What?"

Sam turned around and carried the sandwiches and the box of orange juice over towards the bedside table. He put the food down and shrugged uncomfortably, not really meeting Dean's eyes.

"You were talking. After the worst was over, around the time that your fever started breaking, you were talking in your sleep."

Dean groaned and sank back against the pillows. "Please, kill me now."

He didn't remember talking about anything, and he absolutely didn't want to rehash whatever emotional baggage he had tried to talk off his chest while in fever-induced delirium.

"Sam, I really don't…"

"We need to talk about this." Sam finally looked up and met Dean's gaze straight on. Dean was surprised at how tired Sam looked. Earlier, there had been that underlying anger shining through, but now that was gone and it had left his brother radiating exhaustion from every pore. And only at that moment Dean understood how much that past day had really taken out of Sam. He had reamed himself out, way past the point of exhaustion, just making sure that Dean's physical wounds weren't going to kill him. And as an added bonus, Dean had also thrown him another bone to work himself up about. Nothing worked Sam up like emotional distress, especially if he sensed that distress in his brother.

"Listen Sam, I was feverish. I don't even know what I said. I…really, it's not that big a deal."

Sam stuffed his hands into the pockets of the grey sweatpants he was wearing and shook his head.

"It is. I…we need to talk about this so that it's clear, once and for all. What happened in Burkitsville, that's not going to happen again. I'm not going to just walk out on you during a hunt, or in between hunts."

For a moment Dean was baffled by the reference, and the question why Sam would bring up something that he had thought put behind them. But he remembered the situation only too clearly, and he wasn't too sure Sam was entirely honest here.

"Not even if we disagree on what our next move should be?"

Dean had his doubts that when it came down to another situation like the one that had led to them splitting up, Sam was going to be able to keep his temper in check. But Sam only shook his head.

"No. I meant what I said back then. We're in this together. I want answers, and I can only get those answers if we find Dad, at a point when it's safe for us to be together again. I want to know what killed Mom and Jess, and I want the thing dead. And until then, you're stuck with me. So whether or not we disagree on how to get there, I won't leave until we do."

Dean heard the big fat _but_ that was about to come being set up right from the start of Sam's little speech, and it tightened his throat a little. Sam nervously ran his fingers through his hair before he looked back at his brother.

"But once that is done, whether that's gonna happen in a week or a year, once I have those answers and the thing that killed Jess is dead, you're going to have to let me go."

_When this is over, you're gonna have to let me go my own way._

It was like a blow to his gut, to hear Sam say the words that had been echoing in his head for hours, or even days. But Dean struggled hard to keep it from showing on his face, and shrugged as nonchalantly as he could.

"You said that before, it's nothing new."

Sam nodded, Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed.

"I know. But after what you said…listen, I know that you hate all this emotional pep-talk, so we don't need to rehash every word you said while you were busy setting a new record in frying your brain cells with a fever. But I need you to know that when I went to Stanford, it never was a decision against you, or Dad. Maybe not even a decision _against_ this life, but a decision _for_ another life. One that makes me happy. But that doesn't mean I don't want you or Dad in it, too. Just…"

"Just on your terms," Dean interrupted, and on any other day Sam would have risen to the bait. Dean wanted him to, he'd much rather be fighting again than have this talk. But Sam only shook his head.

"You're my brother. Dad is my father. You're the only family I have, and I want you in my life as just that. My family. And I don't want you to change, or pretend to be something you aren't around me, but I also don't want you to try and change me. If I decide against a life of hunting, then I want you to accept that. So what if I'm no longer the fellow hunter then? I'll always be your brother, right? And Dad's son, whether or not I lead the life he wants me to."

He shook his head and tiredly rubbed his eyes. "That's all coming out wrong. I just…Dean, if I want to go back to Stanford, you'll have to let me go. But I won't be going because I want to get away from you. We'll always be a family, you, Dad and me. A weird and dysfunctional family, but a family. And kids grow up, they move out and lead their own life, without breaking contact entirely. It happens all the time."

Dean shook his head, an uneasy sense of déjà vu settling in the pit of his stomach. They had had a similar conversation before, back when Sam had first announced that he was going to leave for Stanford. "We're not like every other family, Sam. You said it yourself, we're all that we have. We can't let each other down."

"Yes, and I'll always be there if you or Dad need me to. But in between that, I want to live my own life. The life I chose for myself. And even if there's no hunting in that life, I really hope that there'll be a brother and a father in it, and not another three years of silence."

Dean didn't want to have this conversation. Not here, not now. Not while he was too weak to even move around. He looked up and met his brother's eyes. "That was beautiful, Sam. If you can get it to rhyme, you have one hell of a poem."

Sam stared at him for a moment, then he shook his head. "You're such a jerk."

"Bitch."

It was easy to fall back into that. And it was the kind of conversation Dean was used to. Sam, too, seemed grateful for the change in topic and relaxed somewhat. He nodded his head at the bread on the bedside table.

"Go eat that sandwich, you need some food in you. And then you're going to get some more rest, I don't want any repeat performances of the last day."

Sam ordering him around normally would have required a comment, but for once in his life Dean bit his lip and kept silent. Instead he nodded at his brother's haggard appearance.

"You should grab some shut-eye yourself, Sam. No offence, but you look like death warmed over."

Sam ran a hand over his face and sighed. "Yeah, well that's what you get if your brother is an idiot."

Dean picked up the sandwich, took a bit out of it and nodded his head to the other side of the bed. "Get some sleep. I won't even comment on your choice of a king sized bed for once."

"They were out of rooms with two queens. And in case you didn't hear it earlier, the other side of the bed is still soaked from the compresses, and from lugging you back into bed after your beauty baths."

Yeah, Dean kinda had forgotten about that part. He sighed and gestured towards the middle of the bed, in between himself and the wet spots. Well, most of the wet spots, at least he hoped so.

"Lie down before you fall down."

"Dean, I'm not sure…"

"If you don't get into bed right now I swear I'm going to scoot over, stitches be damned. Now stop being such a princess and get your ass in bed." He stuffed the last bite of the sandwich in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "I'm kinda beat myself, and I don't want the sound of you dropping to the floor to wake me up."

Sam gave Dean a one-fingered salute, but after a short moment of deliberation went around the bed and climbed in. He scooted over the wet and damp spots until he was lying next to his brother in the middle of the bed.

Dean pulled the second pillow out from behind his back and tossed it at Sam. He was grateful that lying back down was a hell of a lot easier than sitting up had been. A lot less painful, too.

True, the fact that half the bed was wet gave him and Sam a lot less room to move around, though Dean sincerely doubted that with his stitches he was going to do much of that, anyway. But still, he knew his brother. And after the conversation they just had, combined with the close proximity, Dean thought it warranted an extra word of caution.

"Don't even think about cuddling up after all that caring and sharing you've just forced me through. If as much as a finger touches me, I'll use my elbows. Understood?"

Sam pulled the blanket up to his chin with a sigh. "Yeah, whatever." His voice already sounded half asleep, and Dean didn't doubt that it was going to take long for Sam to be out of it completely. He gave the blanket a tug.

"No blanket hugging, either."

"Hmmhmm. Night Dean."

Dean smiled. "Night Sammy."

This time, no rebuke for the nickname was forthcoming, and for a few long moments Dean listened to his brother's deep and even breathing beside him as he fell asleep. Dean too felt exhaustion creep up towards him, but for a few minutes longer he kept staring at the ceiling, thinking about their conversation.

Sam was going to leave.

That was nothing new, even if his brother had just confirmed it in the clearest possible way. Sam didn't want them out of his life, but he didn't want their life either. Not wanting them out of his life already was a step forward compared to the time he had spent in Stanford before. But Dean wasn't too sure that he was willing to settle for that.

Because there was one thing Sam hadn't thought about. Maybe something he wasn't even aware of, or wanted to be aware of. And that was that Dean couldn't let Sam leave again. Not after getting him back. He had no idea what was going to happen, or how he was going to make sure that Sam stayed, but he was sure that he'd find a way.

He needed to.

Because it was a simple fact that Dean couldn't go through everything his life was tossing at him on his own. And before, there had always been Dad. Until Dad had split and left him. And besides, Dad was…well, he wasn't Sam. Dean loved the man with all his faults and all the mistakes he made, but he wasn't Sam.

Dean needed both of them around because they were all that he had, everything that was grounding him in a life of drifting.

He didn't care what it was going to take, but he was going to make sure that he wouldn't lose Sam again. Whatever it took.

But the main thing was that Sam was here now. Everything else he was going to deal with when the time came.

For now, he was going to sleep.

* * *

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed. As always, please let me know what you think.


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